*BSDThis forum is for the discussion of all BSD variants.
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, etc.

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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

I would highly recommend installing any BSD you can get your hands on.

Long time Linux user (since late 90's) but had always wanted to test BSD because I've appreciated its BSD licensing.
So I started testing FreeBSD and its off-shoots but then decided on testing and stayed using OpenBSD instead for its philosophy.
Mostly run OpenBSD -Stable on servers and very recently diving in to -Current for using on non-server equipment.
Of course I still run Slackware for its speed, no nonsense, KISS and traditional Linuxy approach. And do have a couple of RasPi's that run some variety of Debian for ease of implementation.

Last edited by Livestradamus; 10-29-2018 at 03:38 AM.
Reason: better English

For multiple computers running on FreeBSD, poudriere or synth are recommended. I'm yet to try these.

In FreeBSD forums, many opined that mixing packages (pkg) and ports are not good. But, that may not be a proper answer. There is a "pkg lock" to prevent upgrading packages by pkg, if they are originally installed by ports.

Going to use the current machine as a poudriere build server. I have have always had issues mixing ports and packages so I just don't. I know you can lock packages, but then if an update comes, I have to remember to do it manually. I have minimal software requirements and everything I need is in a package. With a build server, I'll have every port at my disposal to build as a package.

I have tried one of the build tools: synth maybe, not poudriere. It worked OK, but wanted to rebuild webkitgtk almost every single time I updated and that's an hour build or so. My problem was that I was building on the machine I was using so having a separate machine will be good. Probably not a fault of the build system: maybe things built against webkitgtk were being updated.

Not sure this needs an update but I did build a new machine and "promote" the older high horsepower box to a ports build server. Started with poudriere and got it working but found it a bit cludgy to use and I could never figure out why it kept a separate version of the ports tree, or how to update that separate copy. I am sure there is a way, I just couldn't find it. I ended up removing poudriere and using synth, which I had used on a local machine before. As a build server, it works flawlessly for me. I use portsnap to update the standard ports tree every few weeks or so, then use my ports.txt (list of installed ports) so synth can check and rebuild anything that needs rebuilding. My ports build server is set up as the source of pkgs for my main workstation.

Only downside to this is if I want to play with a particular software package, I need to fire up the build server (normally powered off), then build the pkg and install from the workstation. Not a big deal, just something I have to live with because I want custom packages and I don't want to leave the build server running 24x7 - it's a huge electricity hog and the 2 15,000 rpm SAS drives in it make enough heat to bake cookies...setting up the build server was easy and gave me a chance to use ZFS and get familiar with it.

All in all the move to FreeBSD was very smooth and I have settled on a window manager and tools to get done what I need to.